Return to the "POINTER VIEW"November 21, 2001
Return to the "POINTER VIEW"
November 21, 2001
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Jim Fox |
What I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving is that I will have a chance to have turkey at my brother’s place on Staten Island Thursday.
My contingent of the relatively small Fox tribe will be traveling to his house tomorrow to partake of whatever it is he cooks up for us.
He’ll probably be wearing his stupid Mets cap while he cooks just to try to get under my skin a little bit and he will probably give it to my son, Joe, to wear, knowing full well that it will set me off.
I’ll be thankful anyway.
See my brother and his new bride, Alisa, both work in Manhattan. They have for a while now and are fairly set in their ways at arriving at work.
Jason leaves a little earlier than Alisa does due to their slightly different work schedules.
Jason works about 25 blocks north of the World Trade Center, while Alisa’s job takes her a bit farther north. They both used to go right under the WTC each work morning, Jason around 8-ish, Alisa around 9 a.m.
After her morning commute on the Staten Island ferry, she routinely walked past the WTC to catch her subway twice a week.
I’m thankful she took the later ferry September 11.
Alisa was still on the ferry when the second plane hit that day. Jason, and the rest of us, didn’t know for a few hours that horrible day where she was.
The ferry had turned around and returned to Staten Island.
Jason ended up walking out of Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge with thousands of others and ended up at a friend’s house in Brooklyn later that day.
So luck, or fate, or karma, or whatever you want to call it, made me, and the other people in my family, thankful that day.
Jason has innumerable neighbors who didn’t come home from work that day, many of them New York City firefighters.
Recently I had a chance to meet some other New Yorkers, including many from Brooklyn.
I’m thankful I work at West Point, where I get a chance to meet people like the national guard soldiers from NYC, Companies A and B of the 1-69th Infantry -- the Fighting 69th.
About 200 members of the historic unit arrived here Nov. 14 to help out for the next six months. (See related story page 5.) They spent the last two weeks at Fort Dix, N.J., getting ready for this assignment.
Many of them were previously on security duty at Ground Zero.
I’m thankful they are here to help us out.
I’m thankful I am able to know the people who live and work at West Point -- staff and faculty, cadets and soldiers. Americans, who in one way or another, make all of us thankful for being just that -- Americans.
My job gives me a chance to do, and see, some pretty interesting things.
November 14, I got to attend Branch Night for the first time.
Being in the same room with 966 firsties when they found out what branch they would receive was another in a long line of memories I’m thankful for.
The sheer joy on the faces of these American college students was unforgettable. They had just achieved something they had worked at for nearly four long, hard years.
The shouts of joy that night by those future second lieutenants left me smiling. They were all just so happy.
I was filled with pride to be even a small, insignificant part of their academy experience.
I’m thankful to have known some of them while they were here, knowing what lies ahead for them.
I am thankful to have met, over the six academic years I have been here, the people who make West Point what it is -- the birthplace of the nucleus of the Army’s future leaders.
That, and the fact that if I didn’t work at West Point, doing what I do, I never would have gotten the opportunity to be the public affairs escort for the cadet color guard Oct. 31 at Yankee Stadium.
That was special. I admit I felt a little guilty being there.
And as a Yankees fan, I’m sure I’ll never live down not taking the opportunity to accidentally trip Curt Schilling as he walked past us to get to the visitor’s bullpen.
I’m thankful for a lot of things, not the least of which is working at West Point.
